12 Surprising Facts About Gideon’s Bakehouse

You’ve seen the Instagrams featuring half-pound, chocolate-studded cookies. You’ve heard of people waiting up to 11 hours in the virtual queue at Gideon’s Bakehouse in Disney Springs, just for a taste of those sweets, then shelling out $6 per treat. And that these treats are in such high demand the company has to limit sales to seven cookies per person (which is still 3+ pounds of dessert, BTW). Could it possibly be worth the hype?! Yes, friends, it is. At least in our books.

Here’s some of the backstory—and little-known facts—gleaned from articles, podcasts and other interviews, revealing facts about Gideon’s Bakehouse that even some diehard fans don’t know.

1. Gideon’s Bakehouse is based on a book the owner, Steve Lewis, found.

It’s a common question: “Who’s Gideon? What’s the story behind Gideon’s Bakehouse?” Gideon is a name scrawled in a cookbook founder Steve Lewis unearthed while collecting antiques. The book was from 1898, and Gideon seemed to be a kid very interested in baking.

“I hunted for proof of Gideon’s name associated with bakeries in the late 1800s to early 1900s with no success,” Lewis told the Disney Food Blog. “I’d like to think he followed his dream, and I certainly think he’d be proud of what we’ve done in his name because it’s done with love and good intentions.”

2. That cookie recipe is 15 years in the making.

And it takes an entire day to make. Nobody on staff knows the exact recipe, save for Lewis himself.

3. The Disney Springs store can churn out 7,000 cookies a day.

Which may seem like a lot, until you factor in the foot traffic for that area—and the fact that there’s typically at least an hour wait before getting a cookie. Hence why Gideon’s has a seven-cookies-per-person limit.

Of course, that naturally begs the question:

What Is Steve Lewis’s Net Worth? Or: What’s the Net Worth of Gideon’s Bakehouse?

Turns out, that’s a main query that brings people here. Considering the cookies cost $6 each, and if they’re making 7,000 a day, that’s up to $42,000 in daily cookie sales alone, not counting the sale of cake slices, coffee, merch and other products. That’s $15.33 million a year in cookies alone! But that assumes zero food waste, and it doesn’t account for the cost of having 180 employees, rent (especially on Disney property!) and other expenses, not to mention inflation’s impact on said expenses (like eggs). Since net worth is determined by someone’s total assets and liabilities, I wouldn’t trust anyone who gives you a hard figure here, unless it comes from Lewis or Gideon’s Bakehouse directly. There are just too many unknowns.

To that end, Lewis has been very open that his margins are low, and he doesn’t consider money to be an indicator of success, so he hasn’t been pushing to rake in cash. (If he were, he’d probably be obsessed with scaling as fast as possible and licensing out his IP—two things we haven’t seen him do.)

4. Look closely inside the Disney Springs Bakehouse, and you’ll find a rare gem from the Haunted Mansion.

Look up at the chandelier—it’s an actual prop from the famous Magic Kingdom ride. (And no, we’re not pulling your leg; Lewis confirmed it during an interview for the Second Act Stories podcast.)

5. A famous illustrator inspired the bakery’s design.

A lot of people say Gideon’s Bakehouse reminds them of something out of Harry Potter—or straight from Tim Burton’s mind—but Lewis often cites another source as his inspiration: writer and illustrator Edward Gorey.

6. There’s a reason you can’t buy iced coffee at the East End Market store.

Lewis spent years perfecting his peanut butter cold brew, but he doesn’t sell it at the East End Market store out of respect for fellow Market shop Lineage Roasters. (Lineage roasts the beans that are in his cold brew, BTW.) Lewis is passionate about supporting other independent brands and has said he doesn’t want to take business away from them.

7. All of the books in the East End Market store are actual antique books.

Many sourced from Lewis’s home. That’s partially because the concept is so intrinsically him; it’s also because he founded the company with $800 and shopped his place to help create the aesthetic.

8. The average wait time to go inside the Gideon’s Bakehouse in Disney Springs is 5 hours.

Thankfully, there’s a virtual queue—where you give the attendant your phone number, and they text you when it’s nearly time to go inside—so you don’t have to wait in a physical line all that time. (Times do vary, though; this average comes from the June 1, 2022 Second Act Stories interview. When I was last there on a Sunday evening in July, the estimated wait was 90 minutes, but they texted me just shy of an hour.)

9. Gideon’s Bakehouse started as a one-month-long pop-up bakery.

Lewis took a hiatus from his job to bake cookies at East End Market as part of a temporary pop-up. He enjoyed it so much—and people went so wild for his treats—that he turned it into his full-time gig.

10. The cookies’ giant size happened almost by accident.

Initially, Lewis wasn’t in the business of making massive, half-pound cookies. He’d been running his pop-up bakery when a local TV station invited him on for a segment. “I made them bigger, thinking they would look better on TV. I then realized it would be false advertising if they were smaller cookies for the pop-up, which launched the almost 1/2 pound cookie I sell today,” he told Perfecting the Magic. The rest, as they say, is history.

11. All those calorie counts you’re seeing online are, well, anyone’s guess.

As soon as people take in these gigantic cookies, they immediately ask, “so, how many calories are in a Gideon’s Bakehouse cookie?” Estimates range from 400 to 951 calories per cookie, but those are often based on user-submitted data to nutrition-tracking apps or on copycat recipes (which Lewis has said he’s checkout out but hasn’t found a copycat recipe that’s a spot-on match for his ingredients and process).

So take it with a grain of (Maldon sea) salt—they’re, at best, guesses. Restaurants only have to list calorie counts if they have more than 20 locations, according to the FDA, so Gideon’s Bakehouse is exempt from providing this info.

Does that calorie range seem accurate? Well, given that a 5.5-ounce Crumbl chocolate chip cookie clocks in at 720 calories and doesn’t seem quite as decadent, the 750- to 900-calorie range for Gideon’s seems fair, but again, it’s just a guess. If you’re indulging in Gideon’s, maybe give yourself a break from calorie-counting, so you can savor the treat?

12. The latest permanent menu item is based on one of Steve Lewis’s earliest baking memories.

Praise be, the Banana Bread Chocolate Chip Cookie is no longer a limited-edition find! And, as Lewis recently told WDW Radio, it’s inspired by one of his first forays into baking as a kid, where he took a box banana bread mix and added chocolate chips to it, reveling in his creation. Relatable.

This article originally ran on July 4, 2022. It has since been updated with additional information to reflect changing prices and menu information, as well as answer some of your biggest queries about the brand.